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Sleeping here isn’t a good idea. Not when Roman could let himself into my place and realize I couldn’t have gone far with my car keys and phone sitting on the coffee table. That isn’t how I want him to find out about this. “I can stay until you fall asleep. How about that?”
“Okay.” She links our pinkies and leads me to her bedroom.
I’ve seen the one in her dad’s place. It does look like Barbie decorated it while on an LSD trip. Her current bedroom couldn’t be more different. She has an abstract painting of a woman looking over her shoulder on the wall across from her bed. Her furniture is dark wood, and the color scheme is blue and pale gray. It’s feminine and sexy.
She closes the door and reaches behind her, unzipping her dress the rest of the way. The fabric pools around her feet, leaving her in pale blue panties that match it.
She’s a fucking vision. Toned and strong and curvy. I don’t know what happened to the uncertain girl I was dealing with back in January, but she’s transformed, and in her wake is this self-assured woman I can’t get enough of. She closes the distance between us and fingers the hem of my T-shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready for bed.” She tugs my shirt. “And I want to sleep in this.” I raise my arms and she steps forward, bare breasts brushing my chest.
It takes every ounce of my restraint not to pick her up, wrap her around me, and get naked along with her. But I’m in way deeper than I ever meant to be. And I don’t want to give in to the draw, only to have to sneak out in the middle of the night, leaving her to wake alone.
That I’m acknowledging this, already planning a way to get a whole night with her, is telling. I want this. I want her. And not just for a night, or a week, or a month. I’m past casual relationships. I want someone I can rely on. Permanence.
But she’s too young to be saddled with what I’d have to give her. A heart and body covered in scars with no idea what the future holds. And then I’ll be right back where I was when I was traded to Toronto. I’m not ready to face that reality when everything else is still so unsettled.
So instead of telling her what I want, where I’d like to see this go, I let her take my shirt off and pull it over her head. She’s swimming in fabric. The sleeves nearly reach her elbows, and the hem ends above her knees.
I arch a brow. “You expect me to leave here shirtless?”
She bites her lip and crosses to her closet. A moment later, she returns with another T-shirt. This one has the team logo on it. “You can put this on.” She hugs it to her chest. “But not now. Before you leave.”
“You want me to wear one of your dad’s shirts?”
She ducks her head, her cheeks flushing. “It’s not my dad’s.”
“You’ve been stealing my shirts.” Fuck. That does something to me, makes me crave the fantasy world where she wears just my shirts every night.
“I always bring them back. After they stop smelling like you.”
I close the distance between us and tip her chin up until her eyes meet mine. “How long have you been doing this?”
Her gaze darts to the side. “A few months.”
“Before or after I found out you were getting off in my bed?”
“Before. And that only happened once—me getting off in your bed, I mean.”
“You’ve been naughty, haven’t you?”
She nods, her grin coy.
I exhale harshly, trying to keep a leash on my hormones. One of these days I’ll break and give her what she’s asking for. I take the shirt from her, swat her ass, and give her a nudge toward the bathroom. “Brush your teeth and get ready for bed, little girl.”
“Okay.” She rushes across the room, pulling the bathroom door closed behind her and turning the lock.
Smart girl.
I move across the room to her dresser. There’s a small bowl with a collection of scrunchies. I pick one up and bring it to my nose. It doesn’t smell like Aurora, but my fingers sure do. I put it back and glance at the small cluster of framed photos. There’s a recent one of her and the girls at a game, and another of Aurora with her mom and Roman. I took the photo last year on her twentieth birthday. The third is a picture of me, her, and Roman at the diner. This one was taken pre-Batdick. I’m hit with a crushing wave of guilt.
It’s about more than hiding shit. I’m in so deep, and these feelings… I have no idea if I’m just an infatuation for her. Finding out how she really feels is like jumping off a cliff and I’m fucking terrified. No clue if we’re on the same page. Hell, I’m still struggling with the page I’m on. If I could give her the stability Roman wants for her, would he be okay with it? Or am I fooling myself into believing the impossible?
Aurora wraps her arms around me from behind, cheek pressed against my back. “Please, please, please, don’t tell me this was a mistake.”
I turn around and cup her face in my hands. She lets me tip it up, but her eyes are closed. “Please, Hollis.” Her voice is a broken whisper.
